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A Popular Account of the Thugs and Dacoits
A Popular Account of the Thugs and Dacoits Author:James Hutton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: In India, under its native rulers, murder and robbery were hereditary professions. The Thugs, or hereditary murderers, have been completely put down ; but the wo... more »rk of suppression has not yet been equally successful with regard to the hereditary robbers, as they ever found a ready harbour of refuge in the waste lands of the late kingdom of Oude, and, indeed, in every independent state. They usually lived in colonies, in the midst of wild jungles, difficult of access. With incredible rapidity they would sweep down on some distant town or village, plunder some house previously selected for the purpose, and before any pursuit could be organized they were far advanced on their homeward journey. To avert suspicion they assumed various disguises with admirable adaptability. North of the Jumna they generally travelled as holy-water carriers, because long files of that class of men were continually traversing the roads of that district. But to the south of the Jumna they appeared as 102 CONVENIENT DISGUISES. Brinjaras, or drivers of laden bullocks, or as pilgrims journeying to some sacred shrine, or as sorrowing relatives conveying the bones of the departed to the banks of the Ganges ; or as the friends of a bridegroom going to fetch home his bride. In the funeral processions to the " holy Gunga," men's bones were borne in red, those of women in white bags, neither of which were ever allowed to touch the earth, but at their halting grounds were suspended from the apex of a triangle formed by three short poles or staves. These were afterwards useful to the Dacoits as handles for the spear-heads which they carried in their waist-bands. Instead of the bones of their parents they contented themselves with those of inferior animals, wild or domestic. The chief advantage of this disguise w...« less